Slasher
Main Slashers are the most common Necromorph form encountered in the game. Some kind of growth rips its way through the shoulders to create their trademark claw arms, while the human arms are fused to the torso. This means Slashers have four arms. The two on top are for attacking, and the lower arms are for gripping their prey. Slashers come in several different forms. Slashers created from male bodies rely entirely on melee combat. Slashers created from females will sometimes use an acidic projectile attack that they spit at Isaac. They also use melee capabilities. Enhanced Slashers are created when an Infector infects a host, and are characterized as having louder growls and being black or dark brown in appearance with glowing eyes. Enhanced Slashers are stronger, faster and more aggressive. Their melee capabilities combined with sudden bursts of speed against their victims makes Slashers quite dangerous when they catch Isaac up close and in numbers. Slashers are normally seen in groups and are seldom caught alone unless they were just created by an Infector or in some cases chasing down an unfortunate victim. They also like to play dead to surprise their victims, and are capable of limited locomotion even with both their legs missing, dragging themselves along with their claws; some start out like this. Additionally, some Slashers are later created from humans in a military RIG suit of a similar design to Isaac's. These suits had stasis modules which have become fused with the body as a result of the infection process. As a result, military suit slashers are insanely fast, capable of rushing across a long room in only a couple seconds. Slashers are easily recognized by their distinctive appearance and their loping and flailing gait when running, both of which also give them a distinctive shadow. Variants Male One of the most common types of Necromorphs encountered, they brandish their blades and charge towards their victims en masse as their primary means of killing. Simply shoot their limbs off for an easy kill. It's also possible to trick them into playing dead, at which point you can just run over and crush them into a pulp with a well-placed stomp; you may, however, prefer a ranged kill to avoid their arms. The nature of the victim determines, to a degree, the Necromorph itself. The weakest are totally naked, and are third only to Super Slashers and Twitchers in their charge speed. Slashers that were formerly engineering personnel can be seen wearing the remains of their overalls; they have a slower charge but are slightly more resilient to damage. Finally security personnel that have fallen prey to Necromorph infection have an armoured uniform remaining around their legs, making them very resilient to leg dismemberment, combined with their tendency to charge early makes the latter especially dangerous. Female Female Slashers have the same attacks and behavior of a Male, but they also have the ability to spit acidic spheres that explode on contact. They possess only two arms (as shown) as their normal arms have been directly mutated to have the blades grow out of them. This gives them a slightly more distinctive, human-like appearance, and makes it easier to determine them from Male Slashers. Enhanced Fast and deadly - two words that describe the Enhanced Slasher well. The first enhanced Slasher Isaac encounters is in Chapter 2: Intensive Care at the Morgue, which also happens to be what was formerly the corpse of the Ishimura's Captain, Benjamin Matthius. The flamethrower seems decently effective against them, but stay back; they can deal out some serious hurt even on Easy, easily taking out half of your health (in an unupgraded RIG) in a short flurry of attacks. Twitcher See Twitcher Hunter See Hunter Strategy These guys seem to be the bread and butter enemy in Dead Space. You can deal with them in several ways. Chop their legs off to kill at your leisure or blow away their arms. Against two or more of them you can consider using a crowd control weapon like a Line gun when you clump them together. *Not recommended to fight in melee combat as they are noted to block incoming blows. *Whenever you happen to come across a slasher body inconspicuously lying on the floor, shoot the arms. It's another of the Slasher's "playing dead" tricks, and they will jump at you if you get too close. *Unless you are fighting Enhanced Slashers, these guys are easily dispatched at a distance but watch out for ones playing dead upon taking minor damage. ALWAYS make sure they are dead. *You can also use your Telekinesis ability to check that the seemingly "dead" slasher is actually dead. If you can pick it up, it's dead. If you can't pick it up, take aim at the arm joints and fire away, give it a good foot-stomp, or use Telekinesis to launch a nearby sharp object (this includes severed Slasher blades) at its arms. *Another way to see if a Slasher laying on the ground is dead is to see if it has all of its limbs, due to the fact that all the slashers you encounter that play dead will always have all their limbs. *They are known to ambush you from vents, and the moment a vent bursts open with the fan flying out you have a few precious seconds to ready your weapon. *In addition to that, some Slashers, rather than charge you head-on, will instead leap into a nearby vent (where they won't be exposed to danger) and travel to a vent closer to you and burst out from that vent to attack you. Memorize the location of vents in the room you're being attacked in by multiple Slashers, stay away from them and listen for persistent bumping sounds in the ventilation system. *The Ripper can also be used to cut off their legs, making them considerably less of a threat and much easier to take down. First Encounter With the Slasher 4dHhbVT85GE *A Slasher can grab Isaac, prompting an action sequence that, when followed through, Isaac shakes it off and whacks it's head off. *A female Slasher can't use its projectile attack when it doesn't have its head on its shoulders. :Slashers also have a wide variety of responses depending on which body parts are severed. ::*If you decapitate a Slasher, this WILL NOT kill them. It only makes it much harder for the Slasher to find you. They will flail around and slash wildly in an attempt to find you. This can be used to your advantage with large groups as they can attack other Necromorphs in their confusion. They will eventually recover and act normally however. ::*Severing both arms seems to immediately kill slashers and is the recommended way to dispatch them. ::*Severing both legs will cause them to use their blade arms to crawl along the floor to try and attack you. This slows them down to make them more manageable and makes the arms an easier target. However, it is very easy to lose track of them once this happens, especially in areas with a lot of obstacles. ::*A less common phenomenon happens when a left leg and right arm (or vice-versa) remain on a Slasher. It will use its remaining blade arm as a kind of crutch and hobble after Isaac. Trivia *Interestingly, in the movie Dead Space: Downfall, the creation of male Slashers differs in comparison to their creation in the game. In the game, the male corpse's arms shift downwards to the abdomen while the bladed arms burst out at the shoulders, whereas male Slashers in the movie have the blades burst directly out of the palms of their hands while a new pair of grabbing claws burst out from the abdomen. However, some of the male Slashers in the game appear to have the blades coming out of their palms like the movie depicts them, including the grabbing claws depicted in the film. *In chapter 10, an enhanced slasher appears to be playing dead in one of the male restrooms of the crew's quarters. But when shot, it actually turns out to be a dead Necromorph as it does not attack the player. *In Dead Space: Downfall, Hanson shoots both arms off a slasher, but the slasher is still alive and attempts to bite his hand, forcing Vincent to kill it by shooting it in the head. Category:Necromorphs